How to Prepare for a Cloud Server Migration

How to Prepare for a Cloud Server Migration

The promise of cloud computing is to reduce the cost of IT infrastructure assets and processes through lower operational expenses stemming from the cloud’s ability to allow organizations to purchase only the resources that are needed, when they need it. Large enterprise software applications are faced with stringent requirements related to performance, delay, and service uptimes. Despite the significant interest of large enterprises to move their applications into the cloud, the procedure raises a major challenge and there still are questions related to application performance in the cloud, response times and the privacy laws around data in the cloud.

This is not our first discussion related to server migration challenges. In my previous article I concluded that migrating to the cloud may seem hard, but that there are some options CIOs/CTOs have available that makes this process easier and more efficient. Migrating of existing physical and virtual workloads into clouds can be complex and time-consuming without the right planning and preparation. Here are some steps you should consider before deciding which cloud migration procedure is the best for your enterprise:

Analyse your internal processes and evaluate your business needs.

Determine the partnership terms with the cloud provider.

Perform a test of how the new technology integrates into your business by migrating an application which is not vital to your business.

Manual tools are no longer viable in terms of costs and speed and most of the automated tools require technical skills, involving installing other intrusive software on datacenter servers. The cost and complexity of manually rebuilding physical, virtual or cloud-based servers into the cloud can be overwhelming— averaging five thousand dollars per server and requiring months of development effort. And re-architecting servers into pre-configured cloud templates is not any easier.

But these days the cloud technologies evolved and there are the C-MaaS solutions (Cloud Migration as a Service).

C-MaaS tools help companies migrate their physical servers to any type of cloud stack. This is completed in a fraction of the time that it would take if you were to perform a physical to virtual conversion. RiverMeadow offers such a C-MaaS solution that migrates servers into and between clouds “as-is” with the least amount of cost and complexity, eliminating the onboarding challenges for service providers and enterprise users. The RiverMeadow cloud migration SaaS is an API based platform designed from the ground up to automate the migration of physical, virtual and cloud based servers into and between public, private and hybrid cloud environments. By simply providing their Cloud URL and credentials, users can instantly access all the processes necessary to automate server migrations from start-to-finish.

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Jenkins Watson

April 8, 2013

This article is very useful for me as i am planning to change my cloud hosting service. I really thank you for mentioning about the CIOs and CTOs because i don’t know how to migrate from one cloud to another. I will follow your instructions.